God Help the Outcasts
by M. Night Wolfalona
Summary: No matter what happens, good or bad, it's all said to be in God's plan. So why did that plan hurt so much? A small oneshot, set after SDMI's season finale. Slightly OOC, religious themes within. Please R&R.


Disclaimer: I own nothing. Especially not SDMI, or the season finale.

He had no idea just what he was doing here.

The thin young man hovered by the entrance of the church, unsure of his actual intentions. He hadn't been looking when he had run off from the caves, or thinking, for that matter - after the words "military school" had left his mother's mouth, he had stopped listening, and started pounding his feet into the asphalt. He needed to get away from those awful words, still reverberating inside his head.

_This is all your fault..._

_ We feel it best that you go away for a while..._

_We have to find it..._

_ I'm leaving Crystal Cove..._

_Mystery Incorporated is dead_.

Those last words brought a sudden pang of sorrow to his eyes, and he rubbed at them uselessly before stepping into the sanctuary, closing the heavy door behind him. His worn black sneakers padded softly on the faded red carpet, and his eyes grew adjusted to the dim light, bringing to attention stained glass windows and intricate carvings along the walls of various religious figures: the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, Adam and Eve... and at the center of it all was the cross, depicted as it was when Christ himself was hung beaten and bloodied upon it, his eyes gazing heavenward for solace from his father. A white marble altar was placed at his feet, and candles were placed before Him on the steps rising towards his image.

Shaggy - no, Norville now - silently crept towards the front of the church, as memories swam to the forefront of his mind. When he was about six, his mother had gone through a religious phase, and had started dragging her husband and confused little boy to St Aurea Catholic Church twice a week for the next three years. He remembered sitting in a pew in an ill-fitted suit, struggling to understand what the priest was saying at the front of the room while his mother discreetly pinched him in order to stop squirming so much - but all in all, he hadn't really minded. Truth be told, he had actually grown fond of the small cathedral; there was a sense of peace that descended upon him whenever he entered that he never found anywhere else, despite his efforts. Understandably, he was sad when his mom suddenly decided that religion was a phony sham and moved on to making jewelry instead.

But he never stopped believing that someone was there. It was actually rather comforting, to know that if you were alone and afraid, or just angry and sad, there was someone out there who would listen to you and guide you to where you needed to go. Someone who would always love you, even if you made mistakes. To Norville, having a person like that, when his parents were so scornful and disapproving of - well, everything, really - was a marvelous comfort, and one he never grew tired of. Even when the priests were roaring on about the sins and indecencies of the world today, the scruffy-haired little boy knew better. He knew that God and his family loved everyone and their families very very much.

So it was rather painful to watch his own fall apart in front of him.

The lanky teen stopped at the pew his family used to sit in years ago - the fourth one on the left - and slunk in, plopping down on the worn cushion with a heavy sigh. Tonight, everything had gone to hell almost within seconds. Engagements were announced and broken, plans were forced upon others, lies were revealed... the whole place was mutating into some sort of sick soap opera, and he couldn't stop saying his lines, no matter how much mental duck tape he applied. Where had it all gone wrong? Could it have been prevented at all? Was it his fault to begin with?

Was this in God's plan all along?

Norville bent his head down, and closed his eyes, willing himself to forget unsuccessfully. Memories of the past year poured into his head, as the dam began to crack; and as tears swam in his eyes, he could only ask himself why it all happened to them.

No answer came from above. And the saints looked on, saying nothing.

* * *

><p>This was just a little blurb that came to me when I was listening to "God Help the Outcasts" from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. It was originally longer, but the latter part of it didn't seem to fit. So I decided to keep it short. This is set immediately after the season finale of SDMI, and I just wanted a brief look into what Shaggy might have been feeling. Religion has never been portrayed amongst the characters, but I can picture Shaggy's mom in this series going through a religious phase and having the family go to a Catholic Church. Don't ask me why; I don't really know either. I just feel like, in this series, that Shaggy would be attracted to the church because of the loving, accepting atmosphere, given the lack of one at home. And, given how everything that happens to us, good or bad, is supposed to be in God's plan for us all, it would make sense that Shaggy would feel conflicted on the subject, now that his only friends are gone, the gang is "dead", and his parents are sending him away from everything he's ever known. But I hope you like it enough to review.<p> 


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